Newly Discovered Old Judge Player

[oldjudge]

Assuming what Javan says about the structure of the sale is accurate (I have no way of knowing if it is), without knowing what was in the stamp collection it is impossible to say if the purchase price was high or low.

[HRBAKER]

Great stuff!
Thanks for the share.
Happy Thanksgiving.

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

He may have asked to research anyway, but if you had hit him with a number instead of asking him for one, it might not have gotten away. Just one of the tricks of the trade. Great that you shared the story, thanks!

[Joe_G.]

Sweet discovery!, love seeing a new subject brought to light. I thought the next new player would be California League subject but not surprising to see it be an 1888 Western Association player either (some of those Fb cards are impossible). Thanks for posting Javan, hope the Coughlin found or finds a good home. Perhaps we will see it in an upcoming auction.

[Fred]

Javan, thanks for posting. It's a pretty cool post.

Are you back in the OJ hunt? I hope all has been well.

[Joe_G.]

Circling back to some of the earlier posts . . .

Dummy Hoy was the last surviving player from the OJ set, passing Dec. 15th 1961, at age 99.

This moves the number of subjects in the OJ set to 523, two more than suggested by the OJ book. As Jay mentioned, there was the Tug Wilson discovery (proper identification of three Joseph Miller poses) and now Roscoe Coughlin.

The Maroons were hoarding pitchers. Roscoe makes six Maroon pitchers introduced to the OJ set in 1888 as follows:

95.5 Roscoe Coughlin
139 J. E. Dunn
141 Frank Dwyer
161 Fischer
344 J. W. Nicholson
433 Charlie Sprague

Glad my collecting focus isn't Chicago Maroons.

[BobbyVCP]

Jay

Just wondering I know in this set the West coast cards are worth large fortunes and in 12 years have only seen one come up for auction. So just based on rarity alone why would this card not be in the same area of value?

[oldjudge]

Bobby-The card is worth what someone is willing to pay. California League Old Judges are all extremely rare cards and thus collectors pay up to get a single representative copy. New, non-California League cards may not carry the same desirability. We'll all find out together when it sells, if it does.

[egbeachley]

Originally Posted by BobbyVCP

Jay

Just wondering I know in this set the West coast cards are worth large fortunes and in 12 years have only seen one come up for auction. So just based on rarity alone why would this card not be in the same area of value?

I was wondering the same thing. One consideration is that even though it’s 1/1, it’s probably more likely to see another one of these than a second California League.

[h2oya311]

Originally Posted by Joe_G.

...
This moves the number of subjects in the OJ set to 523, two more than suggested by the OJ book...

Amazing how the number of OJ subjects so closely mirrors the number of cards in the T206 “set”...

[prewinter]

Originally Posted by Joe_G.

Circling back to some of the earlier posts . . .

Dummy Hoy was the last surviving player from the OJ set, passing Dec. 15th 1961, at age 99.

This moves the number of subjects in the OJ set to 523, two more than suggested by the OJ book. As Jay mentioned, there was the Tug Wilson discovery (proper identification of three Joseph Miller poses) and now Roscoe Coughlin.

The Maroons were hoarding pitchers. Roscoe makes six Maroon pitchers introduced to the OJ set in 1888 as follows:

95.5 Roscoe Coughlin
139 J. E. Dunn
141 Frank Dwyer
161 Fischer
344 J. W. Nicholson
433 Charlie Sprague

Glad my collecting focus isn't Chicago Maroons.

As I've been researching the Western Association, I did some digging into Fischer, and like others before me, I couldn't find anything. But I just noticed that there is a pitcher from the 1888 Maroons opening day unaccounted for in the n172 set - Arthur "Dad" Clarkson, brother of HOF pitcher John Clarkson. There is a photo of him on Baseball-Reference. The mustache looks like the one on Fischer. Don't know where the photo on Baseball-Reference came from, but could someone who has a better scan of the card take a look... just in case?

[oldjudge]

Paul-That’s a good thought. I have two Fischer cards with nice images and the mustaches are very similar. However, it appears that Clarkson had a more pronounced jaw. I’m not positive, but I would think they are different players. In general, teams were photographed for the Old Judge set during spring training. Fischer may have been in camp trying out when the photos were taken and was cut or left on his own before the season started. There are others in the set who never played a regular season game with the team that they are listed with. Keep up the research!